Major change to class talent trees, and this is a new phase of development for the talent system.

The goal is to have you sit to another next to another combat rogue, and this combat rogue will actually have different talents than you do!

Character customization was the original point of talents in the first place but overtime cookie cutter builds dominated the scene.

New Model

Class Abilities are available to all specs in the class. All warriors learn heroic strike for example.

Spec Abilities are available to certain specs. Only Arms warriors learn Slam. Retribution and Protection paladin get Hammer of the Righteous, etc ...

Talents are optional skills/bonuses available to all specs. Any warrior can choose Throwdown, and you will have to pick between 3 different crowd control abilities on this level of talent.

Level 15 - You pick your first talent. For example, warriors have to pick between Juggernaut / Double Time / Warbringer and players will have to pick which mobility ability they want to pick depending on their playstyle.

Talent Philosophy

Access to stuff you never could before. If you were a subtlety rogue you knew you weren't going to get something like Killing Spree. And because talents are going to be all in the same tree, you're going to be able to combine them in a way that you never could before. For example, any rogue can have Shadowstep!

Several new, overpowered (feeling) talents will be added to the game.

If you don't see a beloved talent in your new talents list, don't worry, it's probably something we gave your spec as a baseline. For example all Holy priests now have Circle of Healing.

Yeah cuz a 15% dmg reduction with Aspect of the Hawk and increased focus generation from Arcane Arrows is awful. -_- Should actually look at the talents before you speak. You're also looking at something to make the same class more unique. This isn't a balance change so shush.

Sorry I should have said I was mainly talking about PvE, I read every single talent from multiple classes. Arcane Arrows is nice and all, we'll just see how it plays out in the end, since we won't have T13 2pc to work with either. Myself and others have given multiple options to improve Hunter specs on the WoW forums, yet we're ignored, now we hardly get much of anything in the next expac? sounds like they listen to feedback amazingly well.

Yeah cuz a 15% dmg reduction with Aspect of the Hawk and increased focus generation from Arcane Arrows is awful. -_- Should actually look at the talents before you speak. You're also looking at something to make the same class more unique. This isn't a balance change so shush.

15% dmg reduction for hawk is good only for pve. Pvp sure it might have some uses, but if you get stunned in fox its gg no re, no benefit at all. In pve its 15% less damge taken which is nice but if you remember, hunter has no damage reduction cooldown meaning other classes will probably still take less damage than hunters do. Arcane arrows IS awful...its nothing else than bullshit rng talent... 5 focus with 50% CHANCE avarages on 2.5 focus per shot... thats INCREDIBLY interesting and powerfull talent...my ass. With current design for ranged weapons with 3.0 speed and nearly no haste on pvp gear it comes down to 2.5 focus/3 sec. POWERFULL SHIT RIGHT THERE In pve i belive poison thingy will be more powerfull and for pvp everything is equally worthless. Frozen ones are shit if concussive shot still exists Poison ones are shit cause they will break trap unless blizz finally make it ignore dots arcane ones is just shit... If it would be 5 focus on each shot then we can talk about somewhat decent talent

another one who cant read... you still getting your echancement talents.
read the blue posts.

for example

Another one that doesn't understand the complaint at all. Even if you still get all the stuff you used to have. Getting to have 6 choices that have next to no real impact on your playstyle is not interesting in any way. Picking different healing options for an enhancement shaman is just stupid.

No, you still pick a spec, and you still gain abilities as you level in that SPEC (specs will have their own abilities, like the old talent system) you now ALSO get extra bonus epic abilities every 15 levels.

I remember at last year's Blizzcon when Ghostcrawler said: "Removing talent trees, that's a change that could cause a great loss of subscribes". And now... Don't get deceived people, cookie cutter builds will still exist (as long as talents have a relation of any sort to dealing damage, tanking or healing), they're only making the system less punitive to those who choose their talents without putting much thinking into it. sooo full of fail

This is the absolute greatest thing they have done with class customization so far. You can imagine how many specs just became PvP viable and a TON more fun in any aspect of the game. Shaman talents look amazing, I really really really hope most of those stick. So F'ing cool.

Another one that doesn't understand the complaint at all. Even if you still get all the stuff you used to have. Getting to have 6 choices that have next to no real impact on your playstyle is not interesting in any way. Picking different healing options for an enhancement shaman is just stupid.

This has to be the greatest troll ever. These talent systems are a joke. You would have 0 uniqueness or differentiation between players of a certain spec. At least right now there is some difference. They need to re-complicate the talent trees and make them more diverse and interesting so we actually see multiple builds of a spec ... instead of this mockery. If they implement these talent ideas they may as well just start selling the game to 3 year olds. Such a joke. I'm waiting for the troll face to appear. This is going to be the expansion that breaks blizzard if they simplify the game any further.

Yeah..cause it takes so much skill to make talent builds now..Hold on typing in arenajunkies.... hold on typing top wow guild in world on blizzard website...Reviewing players..Oh hey look at these specs..guess I should just copy and paste. Maybe people should understand that MOST of the raiding community just copies off the top1% anyway. These new talents spice things up quite a bit and it is making me more excited then any other aspect currently proposed?Pandas? lawl.. Notice some abilities have half duration and such for pve and pvp. This is a positive change for both pve and especially pvp where we will likely see more varied builds despite no game being truely immune to cookie cutter type postulation from websites and such.

Another one that doesn't understand the complaint at all. Even if you still get all the stuff you used to have. Getting to have 6 choices that have next to no real impact on your playstyle is not interesting in any way. Picking different healing options for an enhancement shaman is just stupid.

not sure what to make of this because its too early. I'm not feeling positive about it if im honest. But like Cata - I will wait for reviews and see it in action before i decide if i'm actually gonna buy the expansion or not.The first month of any new expansion is pretty unplayable anyway because of its newness

This system is nothing like Rift's and you should feel bad for even suggesting that. Rift's system is pretty much infinitely customizable: choose 3 of 8 trees, spend points however you want in these trees, get free spec abilities simply for having put X points into each tree. In WoW's system, you basically make a total of 7 choices: 1 of 3 talents every 15 levels, and 1 of 3 specializations at the beginning. This system is FAR less customizable than the 4.0 system, and both of them are much less customizable than the original system. Each class literally has 49 configurations now, compared to literally billions in the beginning. WoW's system might be on par with Rift's if they built onto it instead of revamping it every expansion, but now it just sucks.

They think that dumbing down talents even more is going to prevent cookie cutter builds. Trust me there will be a set of raiding optimized talents moments after the final list is released and everyone will be checking Elitist Jerks to find out what they need to compete dps/hps wise.

It's like Blizzard is an artist that doesn't know when to quit painting so they miss their peak and just end up with a big sloppy canvas.

Another one that doesn't understand the complaint at all. Even if you still get all the stuff you used to have. Getting to have 6 choices that have next to no real impact on your playstyle is not interesting in any way. Picking different healing options for an enhancement shaman is just stupid.

Could you elaborate on the choice you have in the current system? How many abilities, on average, would you say you have different compared to another person of the same spec as you?

My point is I'm going to shocked if you can come up with a viable situation for both players that differentiates both players by more than 6 abilities.